Falling in Love with Life

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I want most for the people I love.

For a long time, I would have said:

I want them to be healthy.

I want them to be safe.

I want them to have enough money.

I want them to avoid heartbreak.

But as I’ve gotten older, and as life has become more complicated, I’ve realized none of those things are guaranteed.

My dad is living with dementia.

I’m facing some health questions of my own.

My children are building lives I cannot control.

And no amount of loving someone exempts them from being human.

For a while, this terrified me.

I wanted to protect everyone.

I wanted certainty.

I wanted guarantees.

But lately I’ve been praying a much quieter prayer...

I want my dad to fall in love with his life.

Not the life he used to have.

Not the life I wish I could give him.

This life.

The sitting room where he feels safe.

The documentaries.

The walks.

The meals we share.

The moments of laughter that appear out of nowhere.

In the midst of confusion, I want him to know peace.

Not because he understands everything.

But because peace isn’t born from understanding.

It’s born from allowing ourselves to belong to life exactly as it is.

And I realized—

that’s what I want for everyone.

For my children.

For my husband.

For my friends.

For strangers.

For the birds in my yard and the flowers in my garden.

I want us all to know the strange miracle of being alive.

Because life is not safe.

It never was.

There will be diagnoses.

There will be grief.

There will be endings we didn’t choose.

And yet…

life remains astonishing.

I wake up grateful.

I love beauty.

I love laughing with my husband and my children.

I love watching my dad love his life.

I love painting.

I love my morning coffee.

I love the smell of rain.

I love that my heart can still break.

And that I can still choose love.

I used to think peace would come when life finally was easy.

Now I think peace comes when we stop demanding that it is.

And perhaps the greatest wealth we can ever know is this:

To be so in love with life that even fear becomes another doorway into wonder.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds.

None of us do.

But I know this—

Life is amazing.

And somehow,

everyone is just fine.